The Strategic Corporal

So I'm just starting to get into table top RPGs. Coming from a wargaming background, I was attracted to the tactical combat of The Fantasy Trip, and I recently had the opportunity to GM a game of the pre-programmed adventure Death Test with friends, two of which had never played any kind of RPG or dungeon crawler before. Here are my thoughts as a first time GM, running a game with brand new players.

This being a very first play-through, I didn’t want to kill everyone off too soon, and after reading about how deadly Death Test can be (and TFT combat in general), I decided to have the players build 38 point characters (32 points being considered "starting" characters.) This was probably too drastic on my part, as I think the party could have used a bigger challenge earlier on. The three PCs were: Vespia the wizard, Krog the definitely-not-an-orc-in-disguise greatsword wielding warrior, and Philip the deadeye crossbowman. I also ran a fourth character, Milo the halfling ninja, armed with bola and throwing stars, In addition to controlling all the monsters in the dungeon.

Highlights of the game include Vespia the clumsy wizard missing nearly every single roll to cast a spell except for two, both illusions. The first was a bear, who inherited its maker's clumsiness and missed every single attack roll it made. The second illusion Vespia created was a duplicate of himself, which provided a much needed tactical advantage in the last fight. Krog, the party’s tank, did tank things until getting zapped by lightning and crit-hit by a magic fist, which took him down to exactly 0HP. Luckily the party had a health potion by that point and were able to get him back into the fight. He also managed to befriend a spider early on, which rode on his shoulder for the duration of the dungeon. Milo’s bola was quite useful for tripping up enemies and setting up Krog for a few quick kills. Milo was also the party's only loss: crushed to death by a giant club.

Milo's untimely end

Philip was probably the real MVP of the party however. Nothing too fancy or showy, just consistently hitting with the crossbow and rolling high damage. He did roll a critical hit and triple damage some poor goblin though, leaving the creature’s spine attached to a wall.

The party managed to reach the final room of the dungeon with an appropriately cinematic ending fight with a giant. Vespia managed to distract the giant with an illusion, while the party attempted to run past and escape, getting quite the surprise at finding the door locked and their escape blocked. This was where Milo met his end as well, crushed flat. Vespia, out of desperation and with only a few ST left, began swinging his wizard’s staff at the giant, criting and rolling double damage. Philip peppered the giant with bolts, while Krog, himself down to only one ST, managed to strike the killing blow.

Overall everyone enjoyed themselves and I think it served as a good first introduction to dungeon-crawling. I really want to lean more heavily into the roleplay aspect of the game the next time we get together.

Things I would like to do better: I need to get more familiar with the rules. I spent a lot of time looking things up and I hate to waste player’s time. As I get more comfortable with the system I hope to get more comfortable winging it and making quick judgment calls as well. 

I liked the tactical aspect of the combat, but several times during play we wound up in kind of a stalemate of the two groups just standing still and rolling dice at each other. As we start adding Talents into the mix (we played with just Melee/Wizard) hopefully that will open up more interesting options.

Final party thought: I know Death Test is a combat focused adventure, but for the sake of variety and to aid in roleplay I would have liked to have seen some more traps or environmental hazards to contend with, or maybe even a puzzle to solve. If I run Death Test again I would like to add some in myself.

The party emerges victorious

The Tombstone Tinderbox, available from Little Wars TV, is a complete starter set for historical tabletop gaming in the Old West. I recently saw it advertised on Little Wars’ Youtube channel and was immediately attracted to it. Here was a chance for some exciting new gaming, all in one package! A new time period (Wild West), a new scale (15mm), and new rules try.

Little Wars advertises the set as containing everything you need to get started gaming in the Wild West. Let’s take a look inside and see what you get.

Game Components

The set comes with a copy of Ruthless, a free two-page ruleset also available online, although you could conceivably use whatever rules you wanted to with this set. I found the rules themselves to be great, and I will be taking a closer look at them later. What is very nice, however, is that Little Wars has also included everything you need to play the rules – character cards, dice, tokens, a deck of cards, even card sleaves and dry erase markers! All components are of good quality, and I was quite pleased with them. It was very nice to just immediately have everything you need to play.

One of the best things included, however, is the scenario book, allowing you to play a four-part linked campaign covering the shootout between the Earp’s and the Cowboys in Tombstone (the gunfight at the OK Corral) and its aftermath. The scenarios themselves are interesting and quite well written, and the linked campaign looks like a bast to play.

As an added bonus, the scenario book also includes tips and tricks for building more terrain, how to expand the game, and generally how to get the most out of your gaming.

Terrain

The terrain items included in the set are a felt mat, a set of trees from Woodland Scenics, and six cardstock buildings with fence sections.

As an avid paper modeler, I quite enjoyed putting the buildings together. They are printed to nice quality cardstock, are of good design, and generally intuitive to put together.

The only thing I would have liked to see improved were the “removable” roofs. They are removable in the sense that you do not need to glue them down; however, they simply sit atop the models and as such are not very secure. Some additional supports would have been nice to see here.

The felt mat is fine, although you may wish to add a little more color to it. The trees are of the usual Woodland Scenics quality.

Miniatures

The Tinderbox comes with a set of eighteen 15mm miniatures from Blue Moon. This is the first time I’ve had my hands on 15mm minis. A google search tells me they are closer in size to 18mm, but still, I am quite impressed with their quality and detail.

I also very much appreciated the variety included – lawmen, horse riders, bandits and banditos, and townsfolk are all represented, with no duplicate poses!

The figures were quite fun to paint up, although I could have benefited with some finer-tipped brushes.

I also appreciated that the set came with basing materials (super glue and washers).

Conclusion

When they said this set comes with everything you need to get started, they weren’t kidding! Terrain Items, miniatures, and game components are all taken care of. Overall I am very happy with this set and am looking forward to getting more table time with it! I will end this post by including a few shots of the game in action. Enjoy!

How much space do you need to play a 1/72 scale wargame? In this mini post, I experiment some more with playing on a 1x1 table. You can find the previous post in this series here. The game is Five Men in Normandy by Nordic Weasel Games.

Early morning hours of D-day, chaos reigns. A small patrol of US Airborne are trying to find the link up point with their unit in the dead of night. Their objective this game is simply to exit the opposite side of the table. They cautiously advance...

The local Wehrmacht garrison has become alerted to their presence.

Rifle fire sends the Airborne troopers diving back for cover.

A lone Airborne trooper charges up the right hand side and engages in hand to hand combat, barely besting his German opponent.

Rifle fire puts another German down, things are looking good for the Airborne patrol so far.

But the German recovers, returns fire...

And sends a US Thompson gunner bailing off the table.

The Americans have a man moving up the flank however.

"Guten tag"

The Airborne trooper misses a point blank shot! Fritz returns fire and puts him out of action!

At this point, with half their number down or bailed, I decide to do a morale check for the remaining Airborne troopers. They decide, wisely I think, to get out of doge and try to find another way around to link up with their unit.

Well that was a fun little exercise. The game was still a little cramped, and I had to adjust the rules a little to account for such a small playing space, but all in all an enjoyable game. Turns out you can play a 1/72 scale wargame on a 1x1 table.

Hürtgen Forest, early morning hours of a cold day in September 1944. Two enemy scouting parties bump into one another in the deep woods, and a short, sharp fight ensues.

The battlefield: extremely close quarters!

The German forces move onto the table first – the patrol leader places his two riflemen in covering positions along either flank, while he and another of his submachinegun wielding compatriots push into the center of the table, hoping close the distance on the enemy patrol.

The American forces arrived second, pushing their riflemen into the center of the table while sending their lone BAR gunner around the flank.

The two forces spot each other, and rifle shots ring out in the early morning darkness. An American rifleman flinches, and one of the German submachineguns pushes up the center. The American BAR gunner senses his movement and lets loose a long, spraying burst, sending the German scrambling back. The American’s use this brief opening to move further around the flank, placing a rifleman behind the protection of a large rock formation.

The BAR gunner, however, has left himself exposed, and on the next German activation he his hit by rifle fire. The other German rifleman uses a “scurry” die to push up the right flank without fear of reaction fire. The German rifleman draws fire during the American turn, but manages to weather it and return fire himself, causing his adversary immediately in front of him to bail and run for cover further away.

The German submachinegun decides to use this opportunity to push further forward up the center, but pays for his boldness: he is quickly cut down by rifle and carbine fire.

The next several turns see a few exchanges of inaccurate rifle and submachinegun fire combined with small positional shifts, each force trying to squeak out a slight advantage over the other.

The American position begins to slowly become enveloped, and in desperation the American squad leader rushes straight up the middle and into hand to hand combat with the German squad leader! Even though the American has a slight advantage, the dice fall in the German’s favor, and the American is bested.

This causes the remaining American’s morale to break, and they flee the field. A hard and viciously fought battle ends in German victory.

This game was played using the Five Men in Normandy rules from Nordic Weasel Games. Hope you enjoyed reading!

Super Tiny Skirmish, published by Mammoth Miniatures, is a fun little man-to-man skirmish game that lives up to its name. The rules come in at just under eight A5 sized pages (roughly half a sheet of US Letter: think booklet size) at 24pt font. This means you get a complete skirmish game in under 500 words! The game is set in what I would consider a low fantasy setting, although the system is simple enough that you could easily adapt it to other settings if you wished.

The rules allow you to generate fighters, fight with those fighters, and even gives you a simple system for leveling up, building a warband, and gaining equipment.

The game mechanics are quick and easy: each fighter has two actions per turn, and each fighter is given four stats. To preform an action (such as attack or attempt to survive an attack) the player must roll UNDER the relevant stat on a 2d6 roll. The system is IGO-UGO, and with only a handful of miniatures per player, the game plays very quickly. The last game I played, my opponent and I were able to form two opposing warbands, play a game, switch sides, and play again, all in the space of about 45 minutes.

The game does lack any real “chrome,” but, depending on your play style, I find that as a strength. With a little bit of imagination you can easily implement additional mechanics as you see fit. For instance, my opponent and I thought it would be fun to give each fighter a unique “skill” that it could preform as an action, and assigned it to the relevant stat.

Will Super Tiny Skirmish replace other games on your table? Probably not. But that’s ok because it’s not trying to. It is what it says it is: a quick little pub game, and a refreshing one at that.

You can find Mammoth Miniatures on Wargame Vault or their own webshop.